On Nov. 13, CDTA sliced a mile-plus chunk of Albany Shaker Road between Everett Road and Corporate Woods Boulevard out of its system — and with it, with the stop where Zeldin used to catch a bus to her state job at Empire State Plaza in downtown Albany.

"This also happens to be the only stretch of Albany Shaker Road, now without service, that has no sidewalks," Zeldin said in a letter outlining her concerns. "So, for those of us who want to use public transportation, the only option is to walk along this dangerous stretch of road during rush hour, when it's dark and when it's slippery."

CDTA Executive Director Carm Basile sympathizes with Zeldin's disappointment about the loss of service, but he said very low ridership on the former route along Albany Shaker left it vulnerable to elimination as CDTA seeks to stimulate more ridership and manage costs.

Photo: Philip Kamrass

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Vicki Zeldin stands alongside Albany Shaker Road where her former CDTA bus stop used to be, this section of the bus route discontinued. The town provides no sidewalks so it's dangerous to walk to the bus stops that are available. She was photographed on Wednesday evening Nov. 30, 2011 in Loudonville, N.Y. (Philip Kamrass / Times Union)

Vicki Zeldin stands alongside Albany Shaker Road where her former CDTA bus stop used to be, this section of the bus route discontinued. The town provides no sidewalks so it's dangerous to walk to the bus stops

Vicki Zeldin stands alongside Albany Shaker Road where her former CDTA bus stop used to be, this section of the bus route discontinued. The town provides no sidewalks so it's dangerous to walk to the bus stops that are available. She was photographed on Wednesday evening Nov. 30, 2011 in Loudonville, NY. (Philip Kamrass / Times Union )

Vicki Zeldin stands alongside Albany Shaker Road where her former CDTA bus stop used to be, this section of the bus route discontinued. The town provides no sidewalks so it's dangerous to walk to the bus stops

"We've made an attempt to put service where people want it most," Basile said. "It is difficult for us to sustain service in areas with a bunch of occasional riders."

Meanwhile the lack of sidewalks actually works against chances that bus service will be established or continued, since pedestrian paths are critical for helping riders reach bus stops on foot, Basile notes.

This is a frustratingly long-standing chicken-and-egg kind of problem that only seems to get more vexing and inconvenient each year.

Without sidewalks, many folks shy away from riding the bus because they can't safely walk to the stop and back home.

Without sufficient ridership, CDTA has a hard time justifying a route.

Without convenient bus service in their neighborhoods, people aren't drawn to ride in large numbers.

And without a lot of bus riders, elected officials don't hear so much demand for sidewalks.

There's an irritating kind of circular logic to this that works against the very kinds of public policies that get the most lip service these days — namely, those that encourage exercise, fuel efficiency, less pollution and less traffic congestion.

In this case, I think it's up to Colonie town officials to finally put rehabilitation of this stretch of Albany Shaker Road on their list of high priorities and do something about it.

Albany County made sidewalks a key element in the reconstruction of its portion of Albany Shaker Road between Maxwell and Everett roads a few years ago.

The city of Albany pushed hard to get reconstruction of its portion of Albany Shaker, east of Corporate Woods, on the region's multi-year program of projects approved for state funding in 2009. The $11 million project continues to languish on the regional transportation plan, though, because of cutbacks in the state funding necessary to make it happen, said Albany City Engineer Deirdre Rudolph.

The best-case scenario now would start construction in 2014-15, which is much too far away — especially since the project is ranked highly by the Capital District Transportation Committee, our regional metropolitan planning organization.

But even when the Albany portion of the road is improved, that won't do Zeldin much good. She has to walk on the Colonie portion to reach the nearest bus stop now, which is about a third- to a half-mile away.

I was unable to discuss this with Colonie Supervisor Paula Mahan, who was among the public officials Zeldin wrote to expressing her concerns. Instead, I received a call and a written statement from Mahan's spokeswoman, Sara Wiest, on behalf of Mahan and the town's public works commissioner, Joseph LaCivita.

In the statement, Wiest said the town "takes the issue of pedestrian safety very seriously."

"However," she said, "we simply do not have the financial resources to install sidewalks on Albany Shaker Road at this time. Our focus over the past two years has been to repair road and storm-water systems neglected for over two decades."

The statement also said the town would contact Albany officials regarding the Albany Shaker project planned there and "we will work with the CDTC to try to secure ... funding to extend the sidewalks along Albany Shaker Road in Colonie."

Zeldin suggests that, while her neighborhood awaits sidewalks, CDTA should consider modifying the route to restore service to the portion of Albany Shaker that was deleted.

"I'm just suggesting that they do a little loop-ti-loop until they get this resolved," she said.

Basile didn't say that's likely, but he said CDTA does plan a six-month review of the new route system, once there has been enough experience to evaluate it. Zeldin's letter, other public comments and ridership figures will among the information considered in the review, he said.

"If (the new route) performs well, perhaps the spot in the middle — one could rationalize filling that in," he said.

The lack of past ridership in the area has been puzzling, Basile noted.

"It's fairly dense, it's close to downtown, it's close to shopping centers," he said. "You would think that the neighborhoods would generate more ridership. They haven't."

I believe that Colonie — and other area suburbs — need to be more conscious and deliberate about seizing opportunities to build sidewalks and make streets more transit-friendly.

And I hope we don't have to wait years to see things change. As Zeldin notes, some people still will need to take the bus, with or without safe walking facilities along the highways.

"It seems to me that these major publicly funded organizations and government entities could find some way to ameliorate this situation before some would-be bus patron ends up maimed or dead," she told me. "Of course, the bottom line is this: What's a human life worth?"